


Keep You Warm

by ineachplace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bartender Steve Rogers, Bottom Steve Rogers, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stucky - Freeform, Top Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:24:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineachplace/pseuds/ineachplace
Summary: “You ever gonna stop fussin’ over me and get yourself a girl?”Bucky’s face goes soft for a minute. It’s why Steve says it. To see the lines in his forehead smooth out. Sometimes he feels a strange urge to kiss him. Like he’s just so full of affection for him that it’s the only way to show it.Steve knows it’s ridiculous. Knows it doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means. But sometimes, he wants it anyway. Regardless.





	Keep You Warm

**Author's Note:**

> *shows up like 4 years late to the Stucky fandom with Starbucks and a smutty one shot*

Bucky has a complete and total hatred for the winter. No, that actually doesn’t begin to cover it—it’s pathological. Something immovable. A fixture of his being. Starting like clockwork at 9 am on October 29th, he goes through the entire collection of Steve’s coats, scrutinizing them, pulling at them. If he finds a hole, a flaw, or for some reason thinks they’re “just not fuckin’ warm enough,” he chucks them and comes home a few hours later with a new one. The price tag is always missing, and Steve never, ever, ever leaves the house without wearing it, or else incur Bucky’s motherly wrath.

“I swear to god you’re not dying on me this December, or any.”

He says the same thing every time. In fact, a lot about Bucky is cyclical; seasonal. He’s dark, gloomy once the sun starts going down at dinner time. He’s more vigilant. The thermometer is always within arm’s reach, tea always hot on the kettle when Steve gets home from a late shift. The cough syrup never gets below half empty—and Steve’s pillows. They’re always, mysteriously, warm before he even lays down. 

He finds the heating pack in Bucky’s sock drawer one Saturday when he’s all out of clean ones. Bucky’s at work, finally, instead of hovering over Steve in his bed like the most loyal ghost in all of Manhattan. 

“S’just a cold, Buck. M’fine.” The sniffles betray Steve, obviously, and he winces when he sees the sharp shadow of Bucky’s clenched jaw against the sunlight. He kneels beside Steve’s mattress, eyes hard but soft at the same time, and presses the back of his hand to Steve’s forehead. Steve thinks he holds it there more than he needs to, but he’s obviously not going to complain. He closes his eyes, hands clasped over his rib cage.

“Don’t got a fever,” Bucky mumbles.

“Exactly. Now will you get outta here? Nothing a little nap won’t fix. You got work and I’ve got night shift at the bar.”

Bucky was about to stand up, but plops back down beside Steve.

“You’re seriously gonna go to work? You’re SICK, Steve. Bars are full of germs and people and—bacteria.”

Steve just rolls his eyes. He may be small and frail and almost always ill, but sometimes Bucky’s the one he truly worries about. 

“You ever gonna stop fussin’ over me and get yourself a girl?”

Bucky’s face goes soft for a minute. It’s why Steve says it. To see the lines in his forehead smooth out. Sometimes he feels a strange urge to kiss him. Like he’s just so full of affection for him that it’s the only way to show it.

Steve knows it’s ridiculous. Knows it doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means. But sometimes, he wants it anyway. Regardless.

“Once you get through a winter without almost dyin’ on me, I’ll marry the first girl I see. Finally get you out of my hair, Rogers,” he teases. 

And then he’s walking out of Steve’s room, shoulders blissfully relaxed and not hunched up around his shoulders. 

Steve presses his fingers to where Bucky’s hand was on his forehead. At this point, he’s surprised there isn’t a permanent mark there from all the times Bucky has taken his temperature. 

  


He almost doesn’t make it to February. 

“Jesus Christ, Steve, when I left this morning you were fine,” Bucky is growling. Steve is hacking up a lung in Bucky’s lap. He hasn’t stopped shaking since he came home from his shift.

“Don’t...don’t know what happened, Buck. M’sorry.”

He hears Bucky mumble something about pneumonia, then he slips the thermometer into Steve’s mouth, the sensation so familiar that he just opens up and clamps the cold metal tip under his tongue.

Bucky starts petting his hair while they wait, and Steve just settles in closer, not caring about how small he feels, how weak he feels, and how sorry he is that he puts Bucky through this every winter.

“It’s not your fault, Stevie. Fuckin’ genetics and global warming. You’re the strongest guy I know.”

Apparently he’s said all of that out loud.

“103 temperature. Jesus, we gotta get you to a hospital.”

He’s there for three weeks and 23 hours. He gets an infection in his blood the second day after he’s admitted, and doesn’t remember almost anything after that. Just puts the dates together and does the math. 

Some things float to the surface, though. He has dreams. Strange dreams.

Bucky crying by the window of his hospital room. His huge hands holding Steve’s face. A Nina Simone song gritted out in his shaky tenor voice that Steve secretly loves so much. He remembers the warm weight of Bucky pressed against him in the too small bed. The kiss to the tip of his ear, the feverish way Bucky’s nose trailed down the skin behind it. He was crying. Bucky was crying in all of the dreams. Touching Steve.

“Don’t cry, Bucky, baby, s’ok.”

“S—you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Steve really remembers this dream. 

“Yes I do. You’re my Buck. Always taking care of me. Don’t know what I did to deserve you bein’ so sweet on me, but I’ll be good for you forever. Promise.”

He feels Bucky’s hands, so much bigger in the dream, tighten around his waist. 

“I love you, Stevie, you have no idea what I’d do if I lost you. Gotta get better for me.”

Steve turns over in some tiny bed, even smaller than the one at their place. He’s hooked up to strings like a puppet. It’s very odd. They’re sticking out of his hands and the soft flesh on the inside of his elbow.

He kisses Bucky on the mouth because it’s a dream and he’s allowed to do what he wants here. No one will have to know. God, his lips are soft. And Bucky is making this noise. He kisses him again, moving in closer until he feels the puppet string snag on something. Then the room starts beeping and Bucky is out of reach in an instant.

Damn. 

 

“Hey Buck,” he smiles when his best friend swings through the doors of the hospital sometime at the end of January, his perfect hair all combed like its picture day. He looks tired, but happy.

“Your first day of freedom, pal! How you feeling?” 

Steve isn’t sure if he’s still on any medication or if he’s still a little feverish, but he moves forward and almost kisses Bucky. It’s not obvious, he thinks, to anyone else what he was going to do. He thinks maybe it looked like he was just swaying a bit; a little unsure on his feet.

Bucky just steps in, one hand going around Steve’s small waist, lifting one of Steve’s arms over his shoulder.

“I’ve gotcha, pal. Don’t you worry.”

Bucky is solid and warm beside him. He smells like a fresh shower, even if the bags under his eyes make him look a little disheveled. 

“You bring your bike?”

“Yeah, Stevie. Snow’s kinda melted. Thought we’d go for a little ride.” Bucky’s smile is electric, and Steve’s tongue swells about eight sizes in his mouth when he slides wordlessly into the seat behind Bucky, swells even more when Bucky takes Steve’s hands and wraps them around his waist.

“Buck...” he’s aware that people are around, and that the position is a little intimate. But Bucky just shrugs and waves a flippant hand.

“Just hold onto me. S’okay.”

Steve nods his head, a bit dizzy from being in the sunlight again after all those weeks in a bed. 

The engine whirrs to life, so loud that Steve presses in closer to Bucky, frail arms squeezing ever so slightly across his worn leather jacket. He feels Bucky chuckle more than hears it. It vibrates through his clothes and right into Steve’s chest. It feels like a respiratory infection, if respiratory infections could feel good.

They ride through the back roads, by the bay across from the Statue of Liberty, and over the bridge they used to cross after one, or both, would get into a fight at school. One time, Steve was getting wailed on by a kid twice his size. Bucky was late to school that day, and the second he got there and saw Steve’s black eye, he knocked the guy’s two front teeth out and got suspended from school. Steve laughed with him afterwards about how he shouldn’t have bothered showing up at all.

“He took Eric’s lunch money, Buck. The kid’s dad just died. It wasn’t right.”

Bucky smiled at him so hard, then, that he split his lip back open, fresh blood pouring down his chin. 

Steve loses feeling in his right hand from holding Bucky so tight, and his legs start cramping from how hard he’s pressing them into Bucky’s hips. He goes to pull his hand back, but Bucky reaches down quickly, holding it there before putting both hands back on the handle bars.

It might be hours before they get back to their apartment. The sky goes from yellow to pink, then a deep purple that makes Steve miss the sun on his face. He thinks he almost dozes with his head pressed against Bucky’s back. When they park, Bucky carefully extricates himself from Steve’s death grip and helps him off of the bike, mussing his hair and scrunching his nose up.

Things feel a little uneasy between them, and they’re both oddly quiet. Steve can’t really make eye contact or look at Bucky at all without wanting to do or say something stupid like “I dreamed this was easy and that touching you made my brain quiet,” but he doesn’t. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets and waits for Bucky to unlock the door to their place.

His hand pauses on the handle and he looks back at Steve. “You okay, buddy?”

“Just...I’m glad to be back I guess. Hate hospitals.”

“I’m not such a fan of them either.”

They walk inside, Bucky immediately going for the tea kettle and Steve just standing in the doorway. Why does everything feel different now? Like he isn’t sure where to put his body or his shoes? 

It was just a DREAM. Jeez, Rogers. Get it together. 

He takes a deep breath through his nose and quickly takes his shoes off. He’d forgotten about his small knapsack full of clothing that Bucky had gestured for him to strap around his back before getting on the bike, so he decides to go to his bedroom and unpack.

He expects to find his room the way he left it—tissues discarded everywhere, his old sheets and sketch books strewn about. Instead, he finds new sheets and two of Bucky’s pillows on his bed. The room is clean save for a pair of his pajamas discarded at the edge of his mattress.

Has he been sleeping in Steve’s room? In Steve’s clothes?

“Steve?” 

He whips around to find Bucky in the doorway with two steaming cups of tea in his hands. He looks sheepish. It’s all the answer Steve needs.

“I meant to clean up a little more before you got back, but I....” He trails off, seemingly at a loss for a good excuse.

Steve feels heat pool in his lower abdomen, like a trap door has opened and an angry fire momentarily starts licking at his skin. 

MINE, he thinks, seeing how Bucky’s nested in his room. Mine, mine, mine, he thinks it so loudly he’s sure Bucky can hear it.

“I missed you too, Buck,” he almost grits out. His voice has never sounded like that before, and he sees a little shiver rack through Bucky. 

“Yeah?” The other asks cautiously, tea mugs looking almost forgotten in his hands. 

“Yeah.” Steve closes the distance between them and takes the tea away, gingerly placing it on the floor. He’s about to move even closer when something shiny catches his eyes just past Bucky’s shoulder. A wrapper? Maybe a piece of tin foil?

Steve’s not sure why it distracts him. Maybe because it looks vaguely familiar. A shape he’s seen before. He cranes his neck further to the left, pushing Bucky aside gently to get a better look. 

Oh.

Oh.

Okay. Steve clears his throat twice, brushes past Bucky to pick up the condom wrapper. 

Bucky looks on, confused and a little embarrassed, and Steve feels so furious he thinks he could actually spit fire if he wanted to. 

He bites down on his tongue HARD, swallowing back down the fury and the disappointment. He simply walks to the garbage can in the kitchen and throws it out. Bucky follows wordlessly behind him. At some point he’d picked the two mugs of tea back up, and for some stupid reason that makes Steve want to cry. 

“Sorry. Should’ve cleaned up. The hospital called and told me you were good to leave and I just booked it over. I...didn’t think to, to,” he bites his sentence off at the last second, shoulders rising inch by inch until they’re right up to his ears.

“Hey,” Steve softens, because he can’t be angry. Not really. Bucky has always liked sleeping around. Was he supposed to go the whole winter without doing it, just because Steve decided to get stupid pneumonia and have a stupid dream? What, and that meant Bucky somehow owed him something? 

“It’s really okay.”

Bucky looks up at him, hopeful. “I can explain the-the condom—“

“Don’t need to. Don’t gotta defend yourself to me, Buck, so long as she was willing and you were too.”

Steve hopes that ends it. Bucky looks like he’s going to say something else for a minute, but then he just smiles—albeit a little sadly—and hands Steve his tea. 

 

Steve gets stuck with all the late shifts now that he’s perfectly healthy. He can’t really fight it because Mr. Tarkeesian pays him completely under the table and basically calls all the shots. He especially can’t fight it because he makes great tips during his shifts— enough to buy Bucky a new pair of shoes. The ones he wears now have a hole in the bottom, so all of his socks have the same brown patch from where they’re exposed to the ground. 

It’s supposed to be easy between them, now that Steve’s doing okay and it’s not as cold, but it just...isn’t.

Steve gives Bucky the shoes, feels like a blessed fucking angel on earth for the way Bucky looks at him for a second after he puts them on, then he’s giving Steve a hard slap on the shoulder as a thank you and going on his merry way. 

Bucky still checks Steve’s temperature almost daily, but his hand never lingers. They go out to the movies, but Bucky doesn’t share Steve’s popcorn, doesn’t loudly take slurps of Steve’s cherry soda because he knows how much Steve hates (loves) it.

One night after a particularly bad shift, he comes home to the smell and sounds of sex from Bucky’s room. Steve clenches his jaw until he hears it pop and lingers in the hallway between their rooms for longer than he should, listening to the sound of Bucky’s breathless laughter followed by a girl’s gasps. He feels bile in his throat picturing Bucky’s hands on her hips, the ruthless way he kisses when he’s really trying to drive a girl crazy. Did it always bother him? Steve always thought he was jealous because he never had the charm that Bucky had, but maybe it had been more. Maybe it was always like this between them. 

He slams his door louder than is necessary and is thanked by a moment of silence before the noises pick up again.

It happens almost every day after that. It’s the same girl for a while—Nora—but then it isn’t. They’re always safely tucked away into Bucky’s room and they never emerge until morning. Sometimes Steve is awake and sees them, sometimes he isn’t.

Bucky strolls out into the kitchen one morning, his usually perfect hair all hectic with sleep and someone’s hands pulling at it, no doubt. He’s not wearing a shirt, just his old, tattered gray sweatpants hanging snug on his hips. There are hickeys on his neck that Steve thinks anyone could see from space.

“You gonna go to work like that,” Steve juts his chin towards Bucky’s neck without even looking at him. 

“You never heard of a turtleneck, Steve?”

Bucky’s trying to be funny. Steve sees the smirk out of the corner of his eye and turns to look Bucky straight in the face, then lets himself take a good look at his neck. He lingers there for longer than is strictly necessary, just to watch that smirk on Bucky’s face falter ever so slightly. He swallows hard, watching Steve watching him.

“You gotta stop looking at me that way,” Bucky whispers, eyes trailing down to Steve’s Adam’s apple.

“Like what, Buck?”

Then the girl walks out of Bucky’s room, perfectly dressed and clearly hoping to make a swift exit. Steve tears his eyes away from Bucky to give her a small smile, which she returns before opening the front door and leaving.

“She’s pretty,” Steve says, clearing his throat and walking over to the toaster and pulling out two waffles. He butters one and pours way too much syrup on the other, handing it to Bucky, who moans when he sees it.

“Name’s Sarah,” he mumbles. 

“Okay,” is all Steve can manage. He swipes his thumb along the edges of the waffle, collecting the extra butter and licking it off before leaning against the counter and starting his breakfast.

He pauses when he sees Bucky staring at him—or not him, but his....hand? Steve looks down at his thumb, still glistening with spit, then back up to Bucky, who swallows audibly before getting up and walking towards his room.

“Gotta get ready for work,” Steve hears him mumble.

Steve stares after him for a bit, kind of shell shocked, then also gets ready for work.

 

It’s an easy shift, really. People are chatty and drunk at midnight, and Steve manages to make some good tips without engaging in much conversation.

He mostly thinks about Bucky and his stupid fucking hickeys, the way his hips moved when he walked into the kitchen. Had Steve never noticed before, or was he just in denial until the hospital? Bucky has always been beautiful, and Steve has always thought that in the small, bright corner of his brain that he reserved just for him. His face was something Steve tried to capture on paper a thousand times. He’d tried to get Bucky’s face right but could never quite do it justice. He couldn’t get something in the eyes, and it drove him crazy. 

It’s about half an hour until closing and the bar is absolutely full to bursting with people. It looks like a frat or something has chosen their humble establishment with the singular goal of drinking all of their beer reserves. Steve sees a handful of women, but it’s mostly men. Maybe they’re new pledges or something. 

“Hey pipsqueak, can I get another Yuengling,” a short, stocky dude wearing a SnapBack gestures to Steve with a drunk smile. His cheeks are ruddy and bright.

“Not if you keep calling me pipsqueak, you can’t,” he responds easily, drying out a glass cup and not even looking up. He hears the guy’s friends all snicker.

“Got a mouth on you, huh,” the guys says, a little surprised. 

Steve just shrugs, walking over to the tap and filling up a glass.

“Three bucks.”

“What will five get me?” The guy asks, leaning in and almost whispering it to Steve. 

“A swift kick in the balls.”

The guy whistles lowly. “That mouth, wow. When do you get off work?”

Steve looks at him again, shaking the hair out of his eyes. The guy is handsome, sure, but he’s not...well, he’s not Bucky. 

Maybe that doesn’t matter though? He teases like Bucky. Steve never really thought much about his sexuality. Women didn’t like him, which was fine, and Bucky filled up this nebulous, gigantic space in Steve’s life in a way that kind of took up any need for any sort of relationship.

“Half an hour,” he says before he realizes. The guy perks up, taking a long swig of his beer and nodding at Steve. 

“I’ll meet you out front.”

“You better not ask me out for drinks,” Steve smiles, trying his best to look like he’s done this before.

The guy just laughs, disappearing back into the sea of people. 

Half an hour later, the last of the drunks have filtered out of the bar, and Steve is wiping down his last table. He saw the guy leave only a little after their talk, and he threw Steve a wink like he was reminding him that he’d be back.

So when the door to the bar opens, Steve doesn’t really think anything of it, thinks maybe the guy couldn’t wait and decided to walk inside.

“Not finished yet, big guy—-“ 

He turns around and sees Bucky, collared shirt and leather jacket. Still in his work clothes even though he must’ve gotten off hours ago.

“Buck?”

“Big guy?” Buck asks, a weird, pained look on his face that Steve thinks is supposed to be passing for curiosity.

“Oh, uh, I was kinda—I don’t really know what to say actually,” Steve stammers, wringing the washcloth in his hands. He walks past Bucky and over to the bar where he returns all of his cleaning supplies. It feels really hot all of the sudden. “Why’re you here?”

Bucky shrugs, looking down at his feet and kicking something Steve doesn’t see.

“Been a while since I picked you up from work. Figured I’d be a gentleman and come get you.” He looks up and he’s smiling, but again, it looks pained. Steve’s not sure what to make of it.

“Buck, that’s real nice, but I’m kind of, uh, meeting someone.” Bucky just stares at Steve, uncomprehending. “Like a date.” 

“At one o clock in the morning.” Bucky’s tone is flat and dangerous, like he’s about to fight someone. 

“Yeah. Couldn’t exactly get out sooner.”

Things are silent for a long time. Bucky just kind of stares at Steve, who has started reorganizing the cleaning products because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

“What’s her name?” Bucky’s voice sounds lighter and a little more normal now, but it’s strained. Steve can tell he’s talking through clenched teeth.

“Not, uh...it’s...it’s a guy, Buck.”

It’s silent again, Steve daring Bucky to say something. He straightens up and juts his chin out. 

“No,” is all Bucky says. At first Steve thinks Bucky’s telling him he can’t go on the date, but when he sees him run a shaking hand over his face, he realizes that’s not really what he means.

“Sorry you came all this way, pal. I’m sure he’ll give me a ride home,” Steve supplies weakly, because Bucky looks like he’s about to start crying, which is super strange to him. 

Just then, the door opens again, and his date looks between them a little cautiously. 

“Oh hey! This is Bucky. Bucky, this is....” Steve realizes he doesn’t know the guy’s fucking name. 

“Jacob,” he says, moving closer to Steve and smiling a little forced at Bucky, who is glaring at him. 

“Uh, Jacob, what if...I mean, I know you waited for me to finish up and everything, but would it be possible to rain check? Buck over here isn’t looking so good, and I’m his emergency contact and everything.”

Jacob looks between them again curiously, then shrugs. “Gimme your number. We’ll figure out a better time.”

Steve does just that, smiling at Jacob, who touches his elbow briefly before leaving the bar, casting another discerning look at Bucky.

“Why don’t we get you home, huh Buck?”

Steve places the container of cleaning supplies back under the bar, standing up on one of the stools to turn the overhead lights off.

Bucky leaves the bar wordlessly, and Steve locks up before following. When he gets outside, Bucky is already sitting on the bike, helmet on. He’s got a white knuckle grip on the handles. Steve just gets on, holding the fabric of Bucky’s coat and doing his best to leave at least an inch of space between their bodies.

What the fuck is happening?

It’s a short ride back. Bucky drives too fast, making jerky motions so that Steve is kind of forced to cling to him for dear life.

Bucky again doesn’t wait for Steve and immediately parks the bike and starts walking for the elevators up to their floor. For some reason, it’s the last straw, and Steve squares his jaw and runs after him.

“Bucky,” he’s a little out of breath by the time he gets to the elevator. “What the fu—“

Bucky hauls him into the open car and pushes him up against the wall, one hand leaving only to press their floor number, then returning to fist into Steve’s shirt.

“How could you? Stevie how...like it was nothing. Like it didn’t mean a fuckin’...thing.”

Bucky’s so close to his face, eyes wide and so, so hurt. Steve tries to swallow past the lump in his throat, but he can’t.

“Use your fucking words, Buck.”

“You have to know. You have to...I know you don’t remember but you must KNOW,” he says, and now he’s tearing up again. Steve can see it up this close. The hands holding him up are strong but not angry, and loosening by the minute. Before Steve can answer, he’s sliding down the wall until his feet touch the ground, momentarily returned to his minuscule height as Bucky looms over him.

“Is it cause its was a guy? It bothers you THAT much?”

Bucky growls, turning away from Steve to punch the other side of the elevator. The door opens on their floor, Bucky walking right out. Steve, of course, follows.

“That’s not—Jesus Steve, that’s not why.”

“Oh my god Bucky then TELL me. I want to understand how I’ve hurt you. You’re not making any fucking sense and I’m tired.” 

Steve feels like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Nothing is right between them, nothing, and he hasn’t known how to fix it. Every day Bucky gets further away from him.

Once they’re inside the apartment, Bucky’s shoulders relax a tiny fraction. Steve’s watching him so intently that he thinks he’s burning a hole through his back.

“I....” Bucky sighs, turning to look at Steve with this absolutely resigned expression on his face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Never... nevermind, Stevie.”

“Nope. No. I cancelled a date for this. You’re gonna fuckin’ tell me why you’re acting like I stood you up at prom.”

“I’m sorry I messed that up. I didn’t plan on it, I just...”

Bucky sits down on the couch and covers his entire face with his hands.

“You have your girls. You...you do whatever you want whenever you want and I don’t say shit, even though it’s been every day lately. Why can’t I have that, just once? Yeah it wasn’t a girl, so what? Not like I was having any luck with anyone anyway, Buck. God, it’s like the moment I got back from the hospital we were strangers or something. I hate it. You looked at me like I was disgusting when I told you I was going out with a guy. Like...like,” Steve doesn’t even know he’s crying until he breaks off on a sob. He’s holding himself too tight, his own hands pushing at his ribs.

Bucky’s in his space in less than two strides, warm hands pulling Steve’s away from his body. 

“I don’t think you’re disgusting Stevie. That ain’t the problem here.” He almost whispers the last part, like it’s a dirty secret. 

“Then what? Couldn’t stand letting anyone else in this apartment get any of the fucking action?” 

“No! Christ, Steve, your damn mouth sometimes...”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.” Steve wipes at his eyes angrily before looking up at Bucky, who is actually staring right at Steve’s lips.

“At the hospital, right before your fever broke,” Bucky’s breath is tickling Steve’s lips. “I’d spent a whole week there, sleeping in the room. The nurses stopped trying to get me to leave after a while,  
even started liking me.” 

Steve swallows and Bucky watches his throat.

“The night before your fever broke, you kissed me.” 

“No,” Steve protests, “that was a dream. There were puppet strings.”

Bucky shakes his head, still looking at Steve’s throat. “You were delirious. Hooked up to about eight different IVs to flush out the fever and keep you hydrated. You kissed me. And I...knew you wouldn’t remember, knew it was wrong if you couldn’t remember, so I never said anything after. I thought...it wouldn’t matter but it did.”

“What are you saying,” Steve whispers, so reluctant to be speaking because he wants Bucky to keep going, to lay his soul completely bare so that Steve can do the same.

“I’ve been trying to keep my...distance since then. You didn’t remember kissing me and I couldn’t stop wanting to do it again. So I tried to back off. Stop touchin’ you so much because I just, I couldn’t handle it after that. Felt like my whole body had a fever every fuckin’ second.”

“You wanted me,” Steve says, reaching for Bucky because he’s completely pulling away and Steve hates that.

“Want you,” Bucky corrects, hanging his head in shame. 

“But all the sleeping around, I—I thought you didn’t...”

“I had no idea...what to do with my hands,” he grits out.

Steve feels so lightheaded he could probably faint if he wasn’t fighting it so hard. He takes one deep breath in, then walks up to Bucky and kisses him, long and hard. Just seals his mouth over Bucky’s and prays to God something happens.

Bucky makes a broken sound in the back of his throat, then surges forward and kisses Steve like it’s a matter of life and death. It takes one bite to Steve’s lower lip and he’s gasping, whimpering, letting Bucky’s tongue pour inside him like a pink waterfall, decimating everything. 

“God, Buck, thought I was dreamin’. Thought it was too good to be true,” he starts babbling the second Bucky’s mouth leaves him to take a breath.

“Steve, fuck, your mouth,” Buck moans, bringing a hand up to his jaw and pressing slightly, just enough to let him lick inside Steve’s mouth.

He grabs Steve’s thighs and lifts him up like he weighs nothing, which makes Steve moan so loudly that his voice breaks. He pulls at Bucky’s hair while Bucky kisses and bites down his neck.

“Said you wanted to be good for me,” Bucky’s voice is low and wrecked, just from kissing. It drives Steve absolutely fucking crazy. 

“Yes, yes, for you, Buck, only for you. Fuck, whatever you want.” Bucky pushes Steve against the wall, hands moving down to Steve’s ass and grinding right into him so that he can feel how hard he is.

“You drive me fucking—crazy. Wanna fuck you. Can, Christ, can I fuck you, baby?”

It’s the pet name that has Steve rolling his hips into Bucky. It’s the pet name that makes him whimper and go totally plaint in Bucky’s grasp.

“You like it when I call you that, baby?”

“Love it, Buck, c’mon,” Steve begs, pushes against Bucky to try to get him to do something, ANYTHING.

Bucky seems to take the hint and drops Steve to the ground. He rips his jeans down and pulls off his own while Steve steps out of them. Steve pulls his shirt off in a blinding flash, then reaches for Bucky’s, hooking his fingers into the space between the buttons and pulling. A few scatter to the floor, the rest barely hanging on while Bucky shrugs out of it.

The second he’s free, he picks Steve up again and carries him into the bedroom, dropping him on the bed and then crawling over him like some kind of wild animal.

His gaze is hot, burning Steve up as it rakes over his tiny frame. He feels so vulnerable, all of a sudden, seeing the way Bucky’s muscles ripple as he holds himself up.

“Not too—you don’t think I’m too...” Steve gestures to all of himself, biting his lip while he waits for Bucky to shut him up.

“Love your perfect fuckin’ body,” he says, one hand grabbing Steve’s hair and pulling just hard enough to make Steve’s eyes roll into the back of his head. “God, you’re the perfect handful. Wanna fuck you every way, bend you over and make you scream. Will you let me, sweetheart? Hm? Think you can take it?”

Steve can’t even respond. He feels possessed, truly, writhing underneath Bucky like his huge body is the only thing keeping him from flying through the ceiling. He reaches blindly for Bucky’s hand and shoves two fingers into his mouth to shut himself up. He sucks on them, laves his tongue over every ridge. Bucky is staring at him like he wants to eat him, making these devastated little noises while he watches Steve takes his fingers deeper, until they reach the back of his throat and he gags. This seems to drive Bucky even crazier, and he pulls his fingers out, yanking Steve until he’s eye level with his hard cock. Bucky sits back, hands buried in Steve’s hair, a question in his eyes.

Steve answers by shoving his mouth all the way down Bucky’s hot, flushed cock. 

Bucky actually yells for a short second, hips punching into Steve’s mouth before he catches himself. 

“God I love....your fuckin’ mouth baby. Can’t even look at you sometimes without wanting to shove that pretty thing full of my cock. Shit,” he’s rambling, the words making Steve just suck him down harder and faster. He only gets to enjoy the bliss for about thirty seconds before Bucky’s pulling him off and kissing him so hard he sees stars.

“Don’t wanna...come before I fuck you, sweetheart. You still want me to?”

Steve doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just flips over onto his back and spreads his legs. It feels like he’s been waiting forever to do this.

Bucky’s eyes move slowly down Steve’s body until they land on the exposed flesh between Steve’s legs. His cock is hard, resting obscenely on his lower stomach while he lets Bucky just drink him in.

“Been thinking about this,” Steve starts, moving his hips in a small circle to watch the devastated look on Bucky’s face. “Thinking about you—unhh—opening me up on your cock, making me take it for the first time til I’m just shakin’ until you come in me. Wanna be the perfect thing for you, wanna be good—“

He’s cut off when Bucky dives down, holding Steve’s ass in the air with two hands under his knees.

“Fuckin’ shit, baby boy, gonna make me cum if you keep talkin’ like that,” Bucky’s almost growling, low rumbles coming from his chest. He’s eye level with Steve’s ass right now, and Steve feels his breath ghost over the pink flesh of his asshole.

“Need you to fuck be, Buck, god I need it so bad, please, please,”

Bucky licks a strip over his hole, and Steve bites down on his cheek hard.

“So good for me, baby, beg so pretty. Gonna get you ready with my mouth until you’re dripping wet, then I’ll fuck you.”

That’s all the warning Steve gets before Bucky is eating him out in earnest. Bucky’s hands leave his knees to hold his ass open, and Steve’s fingers bury themselves in Bucky’s hair.

His tongue laves over Steve like it’s starving, and it only takes a few motions of this before he feels loose enough for Bucky’s tongue to roam inside.

“That’s it, baby, open up for me.”

Bucky slides his tongue in as far as it will go, the sensation so new and so good that Steve has to reach down and squeeze his dick to keep from coming. He’s speaking but he has no idea what he’s saying, really. 

Bucky slides a finger in beside his tongue, and that’s too good. Steve squeezes his eyes shut and tries to clamp down on it to get some friction, some relief. Bucky moans, the vibration against his ass making him feel so filthy that he just goes for broke, twisting his hips down and riding Bucky’s face and finger. 

“I’m ready, fuck, I’m ready Buck, PLEASE, please please.”

Bucky pulls away, mouth spit shined red, and just looks down at Steve’s ass. He looks completely out of it, pushing at his rim and sinking the pad of his thumb inside. He’s only dragged back when Steve grabs the hand that was inside him and sticks the fingers into his mouth, moaning when he tastes himself. 

“Jesus fuck, you sure you ain’t done this before, baby boy? Such a perfect slut for me.”

That, for some reason, does things to Steve. He drops Bucky’s hand out of his mouth and moves his hips, trying to get Bucky to put himself in. 

Bucky gets up then, leaving the room for a moment. Steve sits up on his elbows, neck craning after him.

He emerges only a few seconds later with a condom, which he’s already starting to roll on. It makes Steve think about that day after the hospital, the discarded wrapper that somehow changed everything.

He flags just a fraction, mind taking him somewhere he doesn’t want to be. Bucky kneels down onto the bed, cupping Steve’s hands and kissing him gently, so gently, on the mouth.

“You sure about this, baby?”

Steve gulps down the lump in his throat and nods fiercely. 

“Thought about you every time I did this with anyone,” Bucky mumbles, crawling onto the bed and lining himself up with Steve, his huge hands holding both of his thighs. “Couldn’t come with thinking about you, Stevie. Wanted it so bad.”

“Buck, I—really need you to fuck me. Please,”

“God you beg so pretty, baby. Wanna spread you out next time and see how desperate I can make you. Would you like that?”

Steve clamps his eyes closed and just nods so hard he gets dizzy. 

Bucky moans, and Steve can finally feel the tip of him pressing against his ass.

“Do it,” he gasps, hips taking on a life of their own and canting down until Bucky’s tip slips inside him. 

God, it burns and hurts and feels so fucking amazing. Steve pushes his hips even further onto Bucky, gasping at the stretch as Bucky feeds his cock in the rest of the way.

“That’s it, baby, take it. You’re so good for me, moaning on my cock. Does it feel good sweetheart?”

“Yes, Bucky, more, fill me up please please—“ Bucky snaps his hips all the way in, the force of it shutting Steve’s mouth and making him see Stars. Bucky seems to be completely overwhelmed, he’s biting his lip and looking down at Steve like he’s not sure how they got here.

“Move,” Steve grits out, squeezing down on Bucky’s cock once just to watch him shudder. 

Bucky listens and snaps his hips out, only to slam them right back in again. Steve’s never been more aware of how small he is compared to Bucky, and he feels this filthy tingle up his spine when he thinks about Bucky just dominating him like this. 

Bucky’s hovering over Steve, eyes wide and full of wonder while he fucks into him. 

“So...fucking...pretty....taking my...cock,” he’s groaning, collapsing onto his elbows while he continues to snap his hips forward. Steve keeps his legs wrapped around Bucky’s hips, arms around his neck, holding on for dear life as Bucky pounds into him.

He’s trying to keep his eyes open so that he can watch the faces Bucky is making, but he’s dangerously close to coming and he wants to feel like he does right now forever, so Steve shuts his eyes, mouth falling open because he feels truly boneless, completely wrecked and safe underneath the deluge of Bucky’s body.

He’s drifting off somewhere when Bucky stops moving inside of him, body shaking all over.

“Buck...?” 

“I—I can’t baby, I love you, I...I don’t wanna come, wanna stay inside you for fucking ever.”

Then he feels hot tears dripping onto his chest, and he realizes that Bucky’s about to fly apart above him.

“Hey, it’s okay. I love you so much. Lemme—lemme do this.” Steve grabs Bucky by the shoulders and gently flips them so that he’s on top. Slowly, so slowly, he leans forward and kisses Bucky’s lips, moving to his cheeks to lick the tears away. Bucky looks so wrecked that Steve almost doesn’t rock down onto him. 

“That’s it. Want you to come inside me, remember? You can. I’ll let you. And then we can do it again. You can spread me out however you want, tie me up, make me beg for it. Told you I’d be good for you.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky gasps, hands like vice grips clamping onto Steve’s hips just holding him in place.

“You feel so good in me. I’ve wanted this for so long, thought about it until I started going crazy. You’re filling me up so much. Making me take it.”

He sits up so that Bucky’s dick is almost completely out of him, then slams back down. Bucky hits his prostate just then and it makes Steve fall forward, eyes going up into the back of his head.

Bucky just surges up, moving Steve on his cock and taking complete control again.

“Knew you’d feel this good. Knew you’d take it like the perfect little slut for me, baby boy. God, what did I do to deserve you? Huh?”

Steve just lets his head fall back while Bucky takes over, saying the filthiest shit he’s ever heard. He feels pressure building in his abdomen; a hot, violent wave of heat that makes him go stone still. 

“Oh my fucking—YES, baby, come for me. Come for me, sweetheart.”

And that does it. Steve grabs Bucky’s hair and holds on for dear life as he comes, body jerking so violently he whites out for a second. Bucky is still pounding into him, thrusts erratic and panicked. He looks up at Steve and waits for his eyes to open. Once their gazes lock, Bucky fucks into him once, twice, then Steve feels him coming, even with the condom. Feels the white hotness of it in his ass.

He collapses into Bucky’s chest, breathing hard and crying, for some reason. He doesn’t bother to wipe at the tears, just lets them run their course while he lets himself rest his full weight on top of Bucky.

Neither of them are sure when they regain their ability to speak again, but Bucky’s the first one to stir.

“Think you broke me.”

He’s petting Steve’s head, other arm wrapped lazily over his back. He’s still soft inside of Steve, neither of them bothering to move at all.

“Guess that makes two of us,” he smiles, kissing at Bucky’s chest.

They’re quiet for a few moments, just stroking each other, leaving light, feathery kisses on whatever skin they can reach.

“So, you love me huh?” Steve asks, readjusting just enough that he can rest his chin and look up into Bucky’s face.

“A little. You’re alright, I guess, for a pain in the ass.”

He’s smiling, and it’s the smile Steve only ever sees when they’re alone together. A soft, slightly crooked grin that makes him look younger.

“Yeah, I love you too. Always will.”


End file.
